The Future of Consumerist

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While scanning the collateral Brian picked up in his investigation, we nearly choked on this gem buried in their terms and conditions: it says that you’ll get 7% savings for the first two months, but after that, there’s no telling whether your bill will be higher or lower than what it would be with ConEd (click to enlarge image).

The contract says,

The price for electricity and natural gas sold under this Agreement for the first 2 months of service is offered at a 7% discount to the LDC [in this case, ConEd]. After the first 2 months of service, service is offered at the Variable Price…

Variable Price: The variable price for all electricity and natural gas sold under this Agreement and based upon electricity and natural gas market pricing, transportation, or transmission, and other market and business price related factors.

AKA, whatever deal we can put together on the wacky world of the wholesale energy market. So at first, switchers to IDT see their bills and go wow, these are 7% cheaper. 2 months down the road, they could see their prices spike. They can of course, see them fall, but that uncertainty is a far cry from the “instant savings” IDT Energy reps pitch at customer’s doors. What was that about ESCOs failing to live up to their hype…? — BEN POPKEN